Large-scale Russian strikes killed at least three people and cut power to thousands in freezing winter temperatures across Ukraine on Tuesday, officials said, as U.S.-led talks to end the nearly four-year war faltered.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the pre-Christmas strikes showed that the Kremlin had no intention of ending the invasion it launched in February 2022.
Russia attacked with 635 drones and 38 missiles, Ukraine's air force said.
The strikes came a day after a Russian general was killed in a car blast in Moscow and after both sides held separate talks in Miami with U.S. officials on ending the war in Miami.
There has been no sign of an imminent breakthrough in the diplomatic push.
Zelensky said a four-year-old child was killed in the central Zhytomyr region, where a Russian drone struck a residential building.
Workers were scrambling to repair energy infrastructure hit in the attack, he said, which forced emergency power cuts across several regions in frigid winter weather.
"An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe. An attack carried out essentially in the midst of negotiations aimed at ending this war," he said, adding:
"Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing."
Four-year-old killed
Russia's army said it had launched a massive strike using long-range drones and hypersonic missiles at military and energy sites.
The head of Ukraine's Zhytomyr region, Vitaliy Bunechko, said a girl born in 2021 succumbed to her wounds after her building was hit.
"Doctors fought to save her life, but in the end they were unable to do so," he said on Telegram.
There were also deaths in the Kiev and Khmelnytskyi regions.
The southern Black Sea region of Odesa was also targeted again — as Russia steps up its attacks on the important port city.
Ukraine's prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said energy facilities in the west of the country were most affected by the strikes.
Neighbouring Poland scrambled jets to protect its airspace during the strikes, Poland's military said in a post on X.
On the battlefield in the east, Russia's army claimed to have captured settlements in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in a grinding advance that has accelerated in recent weeks.
Moscow on Monday reported "slow progress" in talks over the U.S. plan to end the war, as Kiev and its European allies seek to adjust an initial proposal that adhered to many of Russia's hardline demands.
